Papaya Corn Soup

December is my favourite month. I love the festivity in the air, the falling temperatures, the snow, the fragrances and flavours of winter, of Christmas. I love the enthusiasm on peoples faces while shopping for Christmas presents for their loved ones. I love seeing children buying Christmas trees with a huge grin on their cute faces. A glass of warm punch or mulled wine at the Christmas Market to warm one up... Oh!!! I love December...and yes, also for another reason: both my husband and I are december babies and we also celebrate our wedding anniversary in December, so that's another reason for me being biassed towards this month :-)

We generally don't need a reason to celebrate but when one has so many reasons to celebrate and to enjoy, there is automatically little control on the taste buds and on the calories. So this year, I am being a little clever and trying to have tasty but healthy food whenever I can - hoping that I would feel a little less guilt when I do indulge (don't know actually, if it makes sense or not but whatever...) 

So here I am with a warm, comforting, aromatic bowl of Soup. It's very healthy as well as filling and delicious. What else could one want?

Ingredients

1 - raw papaya, medium size, peeled and seeds removed

1 cup + 1 1/4 cup - water

1/2 cup - corn, boiled

3/4 tsp - cumin powder

1/2 tsp - rock salt

2-3 - lime leaves

salt to taste

lemon juice to taste 

a pinch of sugar

To garnish

coriander leaves

chilli threads (optional)

Method

1. Pressure cook the roughly chopped papaya pieces with the lime leaves in 1 cup of water for 3 whistles.
2. Discard the lime leaves and puree the boiled papaya with a hand mixer.
3. Add the 1 1/4 cup of water (more or less depending on how thick you like your soup), corn, black salt, cumin powder, salt and sugar and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the lemon juice and mix well.
4. Garnish with the chilli threads and coriander leaves and serve hot. 

Enjoy!